100 Books Like The Changeling Sea

This was the first book I ever pulled from the big kids’ shelves at our library. I read it in the big chair in the den until Mother chased me outside with dire threats that I was ruining my eyes. 

Then I read among straw bales and a heap of yard cats until nightfall lured the cats away. Then I read in bed until Mother threatened further direness if I didn’t turn off my light. Then I read by moonlight until I fell asleep and woke again the next day to read more.

A shipwreck, an island, and a horse. A little barn in the suburbs. These were the opposite of my world. During the hours I spent with this book, I became an escape reader.

The Pern books spoke to my yearning for deep and unbreakable connections. After all, what teen wouldn’t wish to be chosen by a dragon? But Menolly was a bit like looking in a mirror. Uncomfortable in the surroundings of home and happiest on some path leading away from the expectations of family. Even if that path led to a cave in the wilderness. Actually, for me, especially if that path led to a cave in the wilderness.

The shorelines of Menolly’s world, rocky inlets and coastal cliffs, are not much like the shorelines I’ve explored in Virginia. But the salt marshes? There, every detail is echoed. I’ve read the Pern trilogies multiple times, and this is the book I return to when I’m craving solitude.

This book is the perfect place to start.

At first glance, it’s a fantasy tale following a tribe of rabbits as they flee the destruction of their old warren to seek a new kingdom.

However, as the journey unfolds, it becomes more of an epic myth like The Odyssey or The Aeneid, both stories with historical roots. Indeed, each chapter starts with an epigraph from myth or history, enhancing the gritty tone.

Beware, Beatrix Potter fans: this is not a children’s tale. There are rabbit-on-rabbit battles. Meditations on rabbit romance. Deaths of beloved characters. Tense escapes. And, in the end, explorations of the meaning of life, both rabbit and human.

I read it in the 5th grade, and it set the bar for the type of story I yearn to read. It’s such a heartwarming story up until it rips open the heart. It helped me through a difficult loss in my youth.

I found myself walking beside the main character and his two dogs, enduring their cold hunts and sobbing over his loss. 

A boy without a name, referred to only as “The Human Childe”, lives in an underworld of magical creatures. Stolen from his true parents and kept almost as a pet or a trophy by the Fay King and Queen. He knows he is different and that he doesn’t belong here. 

In the world above is a boy named Edmund. Not really his name, for he is a changeling and replaced the true Edmund long ago, but this is the only family he’s ever known, and he loves them, and they love him. However, he can speak to birds and cats and accidentally sets his sister’s hair aflame.

This book is a very complete magical world with beautiful art throughout. The pacing is just excellent, and the story is really engaging.

I thought this would be a typical thief turned rebel leader story, but this book really surprised me. The world is utterly unique, and the magic system adds a lot of humor with sentient keys and locks, literally arguing the laws of physics on whether to open it or not.

There’s a cool heist to go along with, as well as fun, diverse characters, but it was really the unique blend of science and magic that captivated me. The magic feels ancient, but there’s a razor-sharpness in how it’s implemented that is as exacting as any scientific discipline. 

To me, what’s most striking about this book, a queer retelling of “Snow White,” is that in addition to the POV of the Snow White character, Lynet, there’s also narration from Mina, the Evil Queen insert. Only in this retelling Mina isn’t a superficial villain.

In fact, she’s no villain at all. I find her to be a complex heroine, and her relationship with Lynet is equally rich and complicated. I was compelled by Lynet and Mina’s struggles under the weight of feminine and royal expectations. Despite their conflicts, they are more alike than they are different, and their journey to realizing this was so satisfying.

The sapphic romance between Lynet and a surgeon provides a lovely subplot that adds to, rather than distracts from, the main storyline. One of my all-time favorite sapphic retellings.

Reading this book feels like soaring through the skies on Dragonback, experiencing a world filled with magic, danger, and destiny. From the moment Eragon discovers Saphira’s egg, we’re thrown into an adventure that takes us across vast landscapes—towering mountains, ancient forests, and bustling cities full of secrets.

The bond between dragon and rider is at the heart of this story, and it’s impossible not to feel a sense of awe as they grow together. Christopher Paolini builds a world so rich and immersive that every battle, every piece of lore, and every new land explored feels like stepping into something legendary. It’s a book that makes us want to go on our own epic journey—if only we had a dragon to take us.

I love this series of three short novels enough to have read it more times than I can count. The language of the novel is simple and evocative. I love the main character, a young wizard who starts out as proud, angry and arrogant, but becomes deeply compassionate when his hubris leads him to make a tragic and evil use of magic.

I could feel myself grabbed by the world of the novel, a world of men and dragons, of islands dotted in an endless sea, of powerful mages who interfere at their peril with the precarious balance of the world between good and evil. 

Originally, I was looking for a book series to get my 12-year-old (non-reader) nephew interested in reading. The cover art is great, and the description, “a smart-ass skeleton detective and a secret magic world, in the shadows of the real world,” piqued my interest. Yes, an actual walking, talking skeleton.

I first purchased a copy for myself so I would know if it was appropriate for him. I enjoyed reading it so much that I went out the next day and bought him the first four books in the series. They became the first books he voluntarily read. I love the depictions of magic (and magical creatures) in the real world and the constant battle to keep regular humans ignorant of the events that take place virtually right in front of them.